Taylor

One challenge that phone companies struggle with is that of getting their customers to pay their bills on time. It is a difficult challenge, especially given the fact that naturally, people don’t like parting with their money. Thus whereas people are quick to use the phone services, they tend to become slow when it comes to phone bill payments. Yet experience shows the people who run the phone companies that pushing the customers too hard (to pay their bills on time) can be counterproductive. That is because customers have the option of switching to other carriers, if they feel that they are being pushed too hard to pay their bills on time. And if a phone carrier loses customers in this way, it can be very hard to replace them. And it can be a rather huge loss, considering the ‘lifetime value’ of the lost customer. Yet on the other hand, the phone service provider wouldn’t have a sustainable business if the customers don’t pay their bills. And as we have seen, some of the customers won’t pay their bills unless they are pushed… So it becomes a delicate balancing act: aimed at pushing the customers just enough to pay their bills, without pushing them to the extent of considering switching to other carriers.

Thankfully, there are some ‘tried and proven’ strategies that phone carriers can use, to increase the chances of their customers paying their bills on time. In that regard, to ensure that phone services users pay their bills on time, a carrier needs to:

Give incentives for early payment of the bills

This is where, for instance, the customers who pay their bills on time can be given discounts (specifically on account of having paid the bills in a timely manner). This would mean that the customers would have something to gain, for paying their bills on time. And conversely, it would mean that the customers would have something to lose, if they don’t pay their bills on time. So this would push them, at a subconscious level at least, to pay their bills early…

You have to understand that human beings can be selfish, and you therefore have to show them that something is in their self-interest, in order to get them to do it. So in this case, you have to show the phone users that it is in their best interest to pay their bills early, in order to get them to do it. The discounts to be offered for early payment of bills need not be particularly huge. The idea is simply to have something that can push the clients, at a subconscious level, to pay their phone bills on time. The discounts may look modest, at a conscious level, but remember, you are targeting the customers’ subconscious minds.

Encourage the phone service users to sign up for automatic bill pay

If the phone service users sign up for automatic bill pay, issues of late payment of bills wouldn’t arise. That is because money would be automatically deducted from the customers’ bank accounts, to pay for the phone bills on the dates when the bills are supposed to be paid. So the challenge you have to deal with is on how to get the customers to sign up for automatic bill pay. One way to do so would be by giving a discount to customers who opt for automatic bill pay. So you can have a system where customers who sign up for automatic bill pay are charged, say $5 (or just $3) less than what they would otherwise have had to pay. So the customer would get to know that by signing up for automatic bill pay, he would end up paying $60 (or $36) less, per year, than they would otherwise have paid. This would push them, subconsciously at least, to sign up for automatic bill pay. And on your part, it would help you to avoid late bill payment issues. It may also help you retain the customers – because customers who are signed up for automatic bill payment are less likely to ditch you than customers who haven’t (unless your services deteriorate to totally unacceptable levels).

Make the customers aware of the consequences of late payment of phone bills

So this is where you need to make it clear that customers who fail to pay their phone bills on time are at a risk of eventually being disconnected. And that they are also at risk of being reported to the credit bureaus. Don’t make it sound like a threat, but state it in a factual manner – and it will serve to push the phone users to pay their bills in a timely manner.

Send alerts to customers whose phone bill payment dates are near

Sometimes, people just forget that they are supposed to pay their phone bills on certain dates. Remembers, these are individuals with lots of other things to keep track of, besides phone bill payments. So you may find individuals who are more than willing to pay the phone bill payments (and who actually have the funds to do so) – yet they just forget to do so. To help these sorts of customers, the best thing to do would be to send them alerts, reminding them that their phone bill payments are due on such and such dates, and encouraging them to actually make the payments.

Ensure that the bill payment systems are easy to use

If the bill payments are not easy to use, it will serve as a disincentive for the customers to make the payments. People will think of the difficulty they are likely to encounter paying the bills, and shirk from the task (even if they have the money and will to pay the phone bills). So the way to avoid this is by seeing to it that the phone bill payment systems are easy to use. Therefore the customers will know that they just have to spare a few minutes, and get the phone bill payments done. This would ultimately increase the probability of the customers paying their phone bills on time.

As a software solutions developer, you may be required to develop phone bill payment software at some point. This task may be coming from a newly-established phone carrier, who wants to have software to facilitate bill payments. Or the task may be coming from a long-running phone company, that wants to improve its operations through software. Either way, the challenge would be for you to create a system through which phone bill payments can be made.

That would probably also have to be an application that is capable of keeping track of the amounts of money expected to be received from customers in terms of bill payments. And it would have to be an application that can keep track of the bill payments as they are made, and update the customers’ accounts accordingly. At yet another level, the bill payment software would need to have the capability to keep track of the monies received from customers (in terms of bill payments). Then it should be capable of integrating with the accounting system used by the phone company – to ensure that the bill payments received from customers are automatically accounted for. So having been assigned the task of creating such software, you would have to figure out where to get started on the task, and how exactly to go about it.

How to get started

The first step for you, having been given the task of developing phone bill payment software, would be that of understanding the client’s needs. So the objective here would be to get a very clear idea of what exactly the client wants. But you may be surprised to learn that the clients themselves don’t always have very clear ideas of what they want. So you may be forced to use your expertise, as a software developer, to figure out what an ideal solution for them would be. You have to understand that some of the clients may be people who lack a deep understanding of software, and its capabilities. So it would be upon you to create the best possible solution for them, keeping in mind the fact that they would have entrusted the task to you.

There are two key steps here, then. The first step is to listen to the client (with a notebook), to understand the client’s needs in terms of phone bill payment software. From this exercise, you get to understand the capabilities that the client is looking for. And the second step then is to see if there is something you can add, in order to end up with an even better software solution. But you would still have to discuss these additional things you think of with the client, before actually including them in the software. When all is said and done, the most important thing would be for you to understand the client’s needs.

Having understood what exactly the client needs, the next steps would be those of:

Designing the phone bill payment software

So this is where you first have to conceptualize the phone bill software, before actually going ahead to code it. The objective here is to come up with some sort of architecture, on which the phone bill payment software would be based. Based on your discussion with the client (on the client’s needs), you’d need to work out the exact features the phone bill payment software would need to have. You’d need to work out which modules the phone bill payment software would need to have, and what components would go into each of the components. Then you would need to work out how the various components would be interacting, and where the connections between the various components would be. Ultimately, the most important thing here is to end up with a plan, on the basis of which you’d then proceed to actually create the phone bill payment software.

Coding the phone bill payment software

So this is the main step – where you put the building blocks of the phone bill payment software together, to end up with a complete application. You will first have figured out what programming language(s) you’d be using in the project. So what you would be doing is creating code, in the programming language(s) you settled on, in order to end up with the desired features/components of the phone bill payment software. You may need to put together a team of coders, each assigned to a specific task in the project. Then, at the end of it all, you’d need to bring together the various pieces coded by the respective programmers, in order to have the desired complete application.

Testing the phone bill payment software

Once the phone bill payment software has been coded, the next step would be to test it. The objective here would be to ensure that that the software functions the way it is supposed to. So you would be looking to ensure that there are no glitches in the workings of the phone bill payment software. You would need to go a step further, and test the software system, to ensure that there are no security vulnerabilities in it. There are people who specialize in software testing, and you may need to enlist their help in this regard. The most important thing is to ensure that the phone bill payment software is thoroughly tested, before it is released.

Deploying the phone bill payment software

After having tested the phone bill payment software thoroughly, the next step would be to actually deploy it. So this would be a question of handing the complete software package to the client, and getting the client to start using it in day to day operations. A critical step here would be that of training the operators who would be manning the software on how to use it properly. If customers would be interacting with the software directly, they too would need to be trained on its proper use.

Continually updating and improving the phone bill payment software

After deploying the phone bill payment software, you’d need to get the client to be aware of the need to continually update and improve the software. The objective would be to ensure that the phone bill payment software is continually updated, so as to have the latest features (as they come up), and to cope with operating system updates. Continually updating the phone bill software would also ensure that it doesn’t become prone to security vulnerabilities as time goes on.

It is very important for you, as a phone user, to ensure that you pay your phone bills on time. If you fail to pay your phone bills on time, there may be unpleasant consequences. For one, if you fail to pay your phone bills on time, you are likely to be disconnected. Moreover, if you fail to pay your phone bills on time, you may be penalized. And it can get worse: for if you develop a habit of paying your phone bills late, your credit score could be adversely affected. We will now proceed to discuss, at greater length, each of the negative consequences of failing to pay your phone bills on time:

On the risk of being disconnected

If it becomes clear that you have totally refused to pay your phone bills, then the phone service providers/carriers will have no other alternative but to disconnect your line. Once you are disconnected, it would mean that you would be out of reach. People calling your phone number would be met with a tone indicating that the phone number is ‘out of service’. So you would be unreachable. This can trigger other negative consequences. For one, it can lead to loss of opportunities. Some of the people calling you may turn out to be individuals who wanted to offer you opportunities to earn money. But now that you are unavailable, it would mean that you would miss out on those opportunities… All that on account of your phone having been disconnected due to delayed payment of bills.

Your family members and friends trying to reach you through the phone line would also be unable to do so. That can potentially lead to a situation where you miss out on important family news.

You may actually find yourself being a victim of the disconnection: like where you are unable to make an emergency phone call, after having had your phone line disconnected. Or it may be a lighter situation, where you lift the phone handset (the way you are used to), ready to make a phone call – only to remember that it was disconnected due to non-payment of phone bills…

Phone service providers/carriers’ policies on disconnection differ a great deal. There are some carriers who will disconnect you if you are just one week late in paying your phone bill. There are others who allow you up to three months (or even longer), before finally taking the difficult step of disconnecting your line. How soon you get disconnected also depends on the type of phone plan you have subscribed for. If, for instance, you have subscribed for a prepaid plan, it can mean that you would be unable to make phone calls as soon as the ‘credit’ in your phone runs out. You may still be able to continue receiving phone calls through the line, but you would be unable to make any calls until and unless you reload the ‘airtime’. On the other hand, if you are on a postpaid plan, you may be able to continue making and receiving phone calls for some time after the date when you were supposed to make the payment. But then a point would soon or later come when the service providers would have to disconnect you.

If it is a landline service you are using, they may come to make a physical disconnection. But with advances in technology, it is not always necessary to make a physical disconnection nowadays. On the contrary, these days, phone service providers have the option of disconnecting you through their software systems. Then you would find yourself unable to make or receive phone calls, in spite of the actual physical connections still being intact.

On the risk of being penalized

Most of the phone service providers/carriers will impose a penalty on you, if you are late in paying your phone bills. Therefore, if you are late in paying your phone bill, you will end up paying more than you’d otherwise have had to pay (if you did so in a timely manner). Usually, the arrangement is one where the longer you delay in making the phone bill payment, the greater the penalty imposed on you. Like if, for instance, you had delayed in making your phone bill payments for so long that the line was disconnected. To get it reconnected, you’d have to pay a very considerable amount of money.

It therefore becomes clear that if you develop a habit of paying your phone bills late, you are likely to end up spending very huge sums of money on penalties. Yet these are penalties you can easily avoid, if you train yourself to be paying your phone bills in a timely manner.

On the risk of ruining your credit score

Nowadays, utilities vendors (including the phone service providers/carriers) have developed a tendency of reporting people who totally fail to pay their bills to the credit bureaus. Therefore if you go for too long without paying your phone bill, or if you develop a habit of making your phone bill payments late, you could be reported to the credit bureaus. The ultimate result would be a drop in your credit score.

The drop in your credit score can, in turn, have other rather nasty consequences. For one, it can lead into a situation where you are unable to access bank loans. That can in turn lead to poverty – because the only way people finance key assets is (usually) through bank loans. Therefore if your poor credit score (caused by your inability to pay phone bills on time) makes it impossible for you to access bank loans, this would mean that you would be unable to buy assets. And that would translate into poverty – including possible homelessness in the future.

Talking of homelessness, it is worth noting that most landlords nowadays demand to see the credit scores of prospective tenants, before renting their properties to them. Therefore your low credit score (caused by your inability to pay phone bills on time) can lead to a situation where you are unable to get a house to rent. Or at best, it can lead to a situation where you are unable to find a decent house.

We also have the fact that employers nowadays look at prospective employees’ credit scores, before hiring. It has become part of the background check. This therefore means that your low credit score (caused by your inability to pay phone bills on time) can lead to a situation where you would be unable to find employment.

Clearly then, the consequences of failing to pay your phone bills on time can be dire.